Sometimes companies just need a bit of help to get a project over the finish line when their in-house team simply doesn’t have the time or the expertise to get the job done. Thankfully, there are other options outside of hiring new permanent employees to fix this problem, such as staff augmentation.
Staff augmentation is the practice of hiring outside or third-party personnel on a temporary basis to assist or “augment” the internal team’s work capacity. For example, sometimes organizations choose to hire staff augmentation services in the U.S. when their internal teams are already overloaded with projects. This allows the hiring company to retain full control over their employees and operations while using a third party to perform necessary development tasks and such.
How to Hire Staff Augmentation Services in the United States
The practice of outsourcing, in general, sometimes comes off as a daunting task for business owners to undertake. After all, it literally involves handing off part of the workload to strangers and hoping for the best. However, businesses should rest assured that staff augmentation companies hire experts in their respective fields after vetting their experience, which means they have the ability to help companies achieve their goals successfully.
To get started with a staff augmentation company, businesses should decide the areas in which they are lacking talent or where they require additional assistance specifically. This practice is especially helpful for short-term projects that require a significant amount of resources or when projects require niche or specialized skill sets that are difficult to attain by hiring in-house employees. With the current global talent shortage still ongoing, this practice is even more valuable today than it was in the past.
Hiring companies should search for a service provider with resources and talent that meet their company or project’s unique needs and interview them to see if it’s a good fit in terms of methodologies, work cultures, and skills. The augmentation or outsourcing services provider then works with the company to hire the best candidates for the contract, and work begins. The augmented team member(s) then work as a virtual extension of the in-house team for the duration of the project.
When Should Companies Choose to Work With a Staff Augmentation Model?
Sometimes companies struggle between choosing to go through the process of hiring another permanent in-house employee or to go the route of staff augmentation. However, there are a few telltale signs that a company would benefit more from choosing the latter, including:
#1 Information Technology Isn’t the Heart of the Company
When companies from other verticals require IT services or software development experts, it doesn’t always make sense to hire someone permanently. Even for tasks such as improving or replacing existing legacy systems or implementing new technologies, staff augmentation is a great choice for those looking for a more “one and done” approach to a single IT project.
#2 The Project Requires Specialized Expertise
Sometimes rogue projects arise requiring niche sets of skills and previous experience. In many cases, companies simply don’t have access to such talent or can’t afford to hire such a niche expert. Staff augmentation bridges the gap for the duration of the specialized project to help companies complete their projects without breaking the bank.
#3 The Project’s Time to Market Requires Acceleration
No dev team or company has the ability to see the future of a project or know how it will go once teams start their work. This sometimes causes delays. By augmenting staff members, companies get more hands on a project to push past the finish line without compromising quality or their internal employees’ mental health with stress.
#4 The Company Can’t Find It Experts to Hire
Finding the right candidate for a job frequently takes months of recruiting and training time. Companies oftentimes can’t afford to waste this time finding the perfect fit for the role and just need to get the job done. Staff augmentation helps connect companies with such experts without the need for these extended periods of searching. The augmented staff are experts, already vetted and trusted by the outsourcing company, so they jump right into the project to get it done.
#5 They Need New Eyes on an Existing Project
Working on one project for extended periods of time causes tunnel vision, making it difficult to find new ideas or ways to solve problems. Bringing in an outsider via staff augmentation gives teams a new set of eyes to assess the situation and bring a fresh perspective to the project. This helps create new, innovative ideas and boosts companies’ abilities.
Disadvantages of Staff Augmentation in the United States
There’s no doubt that staff augmentation is a beneficial practice for a wide variety of companies for many different reasons. It’s a great way to add more hands to a team, bring new perspectives to a project, and help boost problem-solving capabilities.
However, companies can’t simply go into this type of agreement or contract completely unaware of the disadvantages or risks to consider when engaging in a staff augmentation contract.
These disadvantages, for the most part, are manageable when companies take the time and do their due diligence in vetting each staff augmentation provider before ever signing a contract. On the other hand, the argument is also that some of the same risks and disadvantages arise when hiring a new employee for in-house work. Companies must come to terms with this and weigh the pros and cons for their own specific use case.
A few of the disadvantages associated with staff augmentation services include:
- Quality Risk: The risk that the quality of work provided by the augmented staff members won’t match that of the in-house team is a real concern for teams. This is a fair concern, as companies don’t truly know how the augmented team members will perform once involved in a project. However, companies that go through the effort of vetting the outsourcing or augmentation provider should have enough trust in that provider to know they’re getting the best talent possible for the role.
- A Lack of Client-Specific Knowledge: Often, companies augment their staff for only a relatively small window of time. This shortened timeline means that the augmented team members may never get truly familiar with the hiring company’s way of doing things or the client for whom they’re completing a project. This could cause a bit of a lapse in streamlined work and may cause some frustration for both in-house and augmented teams. To prevent this, companies should aim to provide the new team members with as much information as possible to help ease their transition and make the relationship a successful one.
- Workflow Adaptation: Every company’s internal operations, workflows, and development life cycles differ from the next. There isn’t one way to do things, which means augmented staff members must continually adapt for each contract they sign onto. The temporary nature of the contract means that the augmented employee or employees may never fully learn or adapt to a single company’s processes and procedures. However, through regular and thorough communication with in-house team members and management, these augmented staff members adjust as quickly and as successfully as possible to go with the flow.
- Higher Long-Term Costs: While staff augmentation practices definitely help companies cut costs when hired for short-term solutions, the practice gets rather pricey for long-term situations. If a project goes longer than expected or the company simply can’t afford to end the augmentation contract due to demand, the company will end up paying a bit more than originally anticipated. These highly trained professionals are definitely worth the money, but this sometimes causes a bit of sticker shock for companies unprepared for the long-term costs associated with choosing staff augmentation to fill their needs.
Benefits of Hiring a U.S.-Based Company for Staff Augmentation
There are definitely benefits that come along with hiring augmented staff members in general, as well as specifically in the United States, including:
- Companies increase their workforce without the high costs associated with hiring a permanent in-house employee.
- Staff augmentation companies have the resources to provide a large number of qualified workers quickly.
- Working with a U.S.-based company for staff augmentation makes it easier for a business to maintain compliance with government regulations. This includes taxes and reporting requirements as well as maintaining records of employees’ hours and wages.
- Even if a U.S.-based staff augmentation company works with its own employees outside of the United States, they handle the international aspect of the agreement to ensure compliance with any legal requirements of foreign labor markets.
- Choosing an augmented service saves companies time and money because they do not have to invest in physical resources, such as software and hardware, office space, and so on, typically necessary for human capital.
- There are also no up-front costs required for the arrangement as the outsourcing provider simply bills for the hours the augmented staff works or for a monthly retainer.
Outsourcing Services BairesDev Offers in the U.S.
The right-sized team is absolutely vital to the success of any and every project. Sometimes companies require a bit of additional help when it’s time to cross a project finish line or to take on new work due to overloaded internal resources. BairesDev provides IT staffing services and staff augmentation to help companies thrive while offering the flexibility, scalability, and speed required to fit each company’s unique needs.
BairesDev’s staff augmentation services for IT projects allow companies to work with an extended team that acts as if they’re in the office with permanent employees. This includes daily meetings and regular communication, direct reporting to in-house managers, and so on. No matter the simplicity or complexity of a project, BairesDev’s IT staffing services help companies from the prototyping and development of a project all the way to testing and release.
BairesDev offers:
- IT Staff Augmentation
- Dedicated Teams
- Software Outsourcing
How to Choose the Best U.S. Company for Staff Augmentation
There are many staff augmentation companies available to work with in the United States outsourcing market, which makes it a tough choice for companies and their decision-makers. However, there are a few factors to consider to help companies narrow down the options and eventually choose the best fit for their organization or situation.
When choosing a company for staff augmentation, consider the following:
Resource Requirements
Despite the market’s abundance of staff augmentation providers, it’s preferable to work with organizations considered experts in filling certain roles for a company’s business verticals. These firms better understand the company’s needs and can help choose candidates that are the best fit for the position as well as the business because they specialize in staff augmentation for these specialized roles.
Hiring Techniques
The best staff augmentation partner should support the business’s current hiring initiatives and work to make them better. Finding a partner for staff augmentation services means access to better recruiting resources and channels than a business may typically have. Additionally, it’s advantageous to work with a staff augmentation partner who goes above and beyond the call of duty to locate talent that specifically fits the needs of the hiring company.
Market Knowledge
Changes in industry trends and newfound challenges while hiring for new skill sets are never-ending parts of the IT industry. However, a truly resourceful staff augmentation company tries to stay on top of these changes and ahead of the curve when finding suitable candidates for a company’s projects or ventures.
Companies with a finger on the pulse of the industry can anticipate new trends and tech and remain constantly on the lookout for potential talent who are in line with the same. This ensures that their hires aren’t rooted in the past and can help their clients grow and prosper.
Transparency
Clear communication and complete transparency are the cornerstones of a healthy partnership between companies and their staff augmentation provider. However, this means that the hiring firm must provide its clients with clear documents outlining exactly what its position is as well as a comprehensive breakdown of charges the company will possibly encounter. This is important not only for monetary reasons but also to give the hiring company the outline of what is and isn’t included in their contracts with the provider.
Add-On Services
Each company that offers staff augmentation services has a unique set of value-added services that they provide as an extra or as part of the base price of their contracts. These services include additions such as conducting skills assessments before onboarding or giving processed recruits specialized training. To get the most out of the benefits a business receives from a staff augmentation collaborator, it’s crucial to look for these services.
BairesDev Staffing Augmentation Services in the United States
BairesDev strives to connect companies with the talent they require in the most timely and effective manner possible for IT staff augmentation services. The BairesDev team accomplishes this via the following:
- Top 1% of Information Technology Talent: BairesDev specializes in the delivery of solid, end-to-end, tailor-made technological solutions by only choosing to hire the top 1% of tech talent, including developers, project managers, quality assurance and testing professionals, and leadership.
- Expertise: BairesDev thoroughly tests the logical, mathematical, and technical skills of each possible team addition as well as their soft skills for working with clients. Only those who score the highest marks across each area join the team and gain access to clients.
- Dedicated Teams: BairesDev doesn’t “double dip” talent, which means engineers and employees dedicated to a single company aren’t allocated to other projects or accounts. This helps companies rest assured that their augmented team members stay on track.
- Companies Maintain Control: Working with BairesDev engineers means a quick integration into an internal team’s processes and procedures while reporting directly to in-house managers as an in-house employee would.
